In recent years, much interest has been evidenced in a field now widely known as computed tomography. In a typical procedure utilizing computed tomography (or CT), an X-ray source and detector are physically coupled together on opposite sides of the portion of a sample which is to be examined. The sample can be a patient or phantom or other objects, for example. X-rays are made to transit through the sample to be examined, while the detector measures the X-rays which make it through the sample without being absorbed or deflected. Periodically, the paired source and detector are rotated to differing angular orientations about the sample, and the data collection process repeated.
A very high number of measurements of attenuation values may be obtained by procedures of this type. The relatively massive amounts of data thus accumulated are processed by a computer, which typically does a mathematical data reduction to obtain attenuation values for a very high number of transmission valves (typically in the hundreds of thousands) within the section of the sample being scanned. This data may then be combined to enable reconstruction of a matrix (visual or otherwise) which constitutes an accurate depiction of the density function of the sample section examined.
By considering one or more of such sections, skilled medical diagnosticians may diagnose various body elements such as tumors, blood clots, cysts, hemorrhages and various abnormalities, which heretofore were detectable, if at all, only by much more cumbersome and, in many instances, more hazardous-to-the-patient techniques.